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Coronavirus Warning Goes Out to Kingdom Halls

The Watchtower has quietly notified Kingdom Halls throughout the United States to take special precautions and preventive steps to reduce their members’ exposure to the dreaded and fast-moving Coronavirus epidemic spreading throughout the United States. On March 7, 2020, Mike and Kim released a video that quotes the most recent Watchtower “elders letter” that instructs local Jehovah’s Witness elders on how to manage the threat to members and visitors to their congregations.

The warning letter was sent to them by “Atlantis,” a long time anonymous ex-JW activist who manages to stay relatively close to what goes on in the background and inside the walls of the Watchtower. Remaining out of the mainstream and only speaking out when events or apparent changes of policy by Watchtower leaders are important and noteworthy, “Atlantis” has been a source proven to be extremely credible.

In the video, as Kim introduces and analyzes the letter, she points out that not all areas are involved. The guidelines only apply to regions where the virus seems to be concentrated or reported as being active. The instructions from Watchtower headquarters only apply to those areas – not to other Kingdom Halls that have not yet been affected. They also make it clear that they want to keep the letter and instructions secret and limited to only those specific Kingdom Halls that have been notified. Some readers may think that it only applies to the annual public invited “Memorial” meeting in April 2020 – but that guideline is not specified.

What is confusing is that there is nothing in the letters that take any real action to prevent incidental exposure to either Jehovah’s Witnesses, their families, or members of the public by suspending door-to-door ministry activities or closing Kingdom Halls in affected areas. San Gabriel and Riverside/Corona areas in Southern California seem to have had exposure based on the letter.

The Watchtower has a long and damaging history of taking a stand against expected public management of health issues. During the 1950’s rapid spread of polio throughout the United States, the Watchtower took a stand against Jehovah’s Witnesses being inoculated with new vaccines to prevent infection among children and some adults. Although the number of eventual victims was never determined, the Watchtower quietly went quiet and allowed individuals and Witness families to decide to accept the vaccines “based on their own conscience.” Some school districts would not allow children to attend classes if they had not been inoculated and therefore in violation of local laws.

Observers can expect that truly dedicated Jehovah’s Witnesses will, at least for the short term, reduce their “door-to-door preaching” activities and switch to making phone calls or sending postal mail to some households. Unfortunately, there may also be those who will ignore the warnings and continue knocking on doors (almost non-existent now except in some rural areas) or doing street corner preaching.